In the handling of glass containers for inspecting the containers for various defects, such as vertical and horizontal checks in the finish, bottom checks or heel checks in the bottom or heel of the container, internal diameter of the finish, outer diameter, height, warp and dip and cocked finish all are familiar and presently carried out, inspections. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,313,409 issued Apr., 1967 to J. R. Johnson, discloses an apparatus in which the containers are indexed by a starwheel which is formed with pockets in its periphery at spaced intervals for the purpose of conveying the containers to be inspected into and out of a series of inspection positions. This prior art inspection apparatus described, actually has only five inspection positions or stations. Other inspections which could be carried out on containers when they are positioned in the inspection handling system may be, for example, wall thickness at various heights of the container sidewall, shoulder thickness or heel thickness, sidewall distribution, bottle diameter, etc.
As shown in the above-referred-to Johnson patent, a plurality of inspections may be performed at a single inspection station, provided the equipment that is used to make the inspections does not interfere with each other. In nearly all instances where a true inspection of the container circumference takes place, it is necessary that the container be rotated at least one complete revolution or alternatively, if the container is not rotated, it is necessary that the inspection equipment be rotated about the container's axis. Many of the inspection devices are optical, such as specifically shown and described with respect to FIGS. 13 and 14 of the Johnson patent. It can readily be seen that with a device such as that shown in the Johnson patent, only five inspection stations are provided, and while the particular illustration in the Johnson patent relates to the inspection of small ware, similar inspection equipment for larger diameter ware may be utilized by replacing a starwheel, as shown in the Johnson device, with other starwheels with much larger pockets. The design of the machine has been such that the largest diameter of the ware inspected by the equipment limits the utilization of the system to a five-station inspection device.
With this in mind, it is an object of the present invention to provide a handling system that is compatible with inspection equipment which has nine useable inspection positions, the containers being moved through these successive inspection positions by the equipment of the invention.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide apparatus for moving the containers through a successive series of positions by indexing a plurality of bottle-engaging pockets.